


The Curse of Creativity

by Arcadian_Skye



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Body Horror, Crying, Darkness, Fear, Hallucinations, Horror, Hurt No Comfort, If I need to add a tag please please tell me, Insects, Roman whump, Spiders, Storms, Wounds, beasts - Freeform, crawling sensation, please, read the tags, schizophrenic symptoms, scorpions, trigger warnings apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14942067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcadian_Skye/pseuds/Arcadian_Skye
Summary: The problem with creativity was sometimes you were plagued with an overactive imagination.





	The Curse of Creativity

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly a vent fic.  
> Not beta read at all.

Roman locked his door, leaning his forehead against it. Sure they had accepted Virgil, but he still couldn’t work up the courage to trust them with this. He closed his eyes tight against the tears threatening to spill over, ignoring the crawling sensation up his spine.

Nights like these were few and far between. They happened more often when Thomas was a child, but now that he was an adult, they had lowered in recency to maybe once or twice a year. Maybe he could have sought out Logan’s reassuring facts or Patton’s doting nature. Or perhaps he could have found camaraderie with Virgil on these nights, but this was his burden to bear. He refused to bring this on the others, to bring them down. He’d rather nurse his wounds in private, and while he cursed himself for lacking the confidence to tell the others, he knew this was the better option.

He shivered, the crawling up his spine spreading out into his limbs, and he did his best not to itch at this skin. Stumbling over to his kingdom door, he lowered the drop bar to it as well. He knew these nights were bad nights for his kingdom, knew they called these “dark nights,” and they cried for a hero during these times. But he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t. He couldn’t push back the roiling storms or the stalking beasts when he was busy cowering from things unseen.

Ungracefully plopping down onto his bed, head in his hands, he debated the light switch. The dark would only make things worse. Make him see and hear more things that weren’t there. He cringed at a clawing noise coming from… somewhere in the room. But the light was harsh, screaming and painful where he craved nothing but release from pain.

A screech from the wall startled him out of his skin, and he fought the urge to curl up in his bed. Lights on then. With a snap, his lamps flicked on, and he began to focus on disconnecting just a little from Thomas. Enough to take the edge off for the others, his attempt to keep them from having nightmares, but not enough to cause any sort of alarm. Once that was done, he caved in to his fear. Pulling his blanket tightly around him, he nested in the corner and stared wide eyed at the room.

It as only 11 at night, yet it felt like it was so much later. He winced at the sound of nails against wood and whipped his head around to find the source of the noise. It took a moment to collect his wits, shaking his head in disbelief at his own foolishness and closing his eyes. With his eyes closed, all he had to focus on was the crawling sensation under his skin and becoming increasingly convinced they were spiders or scorpions. Cursing himself, he snapped his eyes open again and found himself face to face with a hooded figure. The figure leaned this way and that, and Roman realized it had no face. White teeth showed themselves in that moment, widening into a grin that was far too wide to be human. Breath hitching, Roman tried not to panic. In a blink it was gone, and he was staring at the far wall of his room.

Before he had a chance to collect himself, another screech sounded across the room but this time it was accompanied by crying from the wall behind him. He leaped out of his bed, turning around and finding nothing there. He took a few steps back, legs shaking, and he could’ve sworn he felt a hand on his shoulder. He flipped around again, breathing unsteady, but found nothing there yet again. The walls didn’t feel safe enough all of a sudden, so he collected his blanket and sat on the floor in the middle of his room, reciting the breathing technique Virgil used.

Glancing at the clock, he realized that somehow an hour and a half had passed. How? Was he staring at the figure that long? He knew time ran screwy for him on these nights, but that still made no sense.

The crawling sensation from the spiders and scorpions under his skin suddenly turned into biting stinging sensations, and he screamed. He fell backwards and kept falling. Falling, falling, falling, and he feared never returning, never landing, just falling for eternity, heart in his throat, and his breath erratic.

His back smacked something painfully in his fall, and he bounced off to the side, now falling face first which was somehow so much worse. Something grabbed the back of his shirt, and he wheezed for air, tears escaping his eyes.

He twisted to see what grabbed him and immediately regretted it. It was the figure from before, he knew on some visceral level, but it looked nothing alike. The hood was pulled back and too wide white eyes stared back at him. But there was no iris, no pupils, just never ending white. It matched the white of its smile, the fangs protruding far too long. Instead of a body, there was only black fog rolling off of it in waves, consuming Roman. The white of the creatures eyes expanded and expanded until it was all he could see, until the brightness was unbearable, and he had to shut his eyes against it.

But without his eyes open, he could feel the black mist burning him alive, searing off his skin and agitating the crawling creatures now freed from their prison. The spiders jumped off, hanging by their silk before crawling back up and proceeding to methodically cover him in webbing. The scorpions crawled up his chest, some creeping up the creature’s claws that were somehow lodged into his chest without him feeling or realizing it. They were consumed by the black fog, but the others explored him thoroughly, crawling up and down his legs, his arms, across his face. Every now and then they would sting him, but he couldn’t scream, couldn’t risk the black fog entering his lungs.

He hung there for ages. Hours into days into weeks into years, and it felt like he would never be free, never be released from this strange hell. A claw dug deep into his chest, squeezing his heart and lungs, spiders slowly trapping him, cocooning him, scorpions making their home in his burnt skin, his screaming muscles.

Sluggishly, his mind recognized these sensations, but they were so disconnected that it never startled him, never registered that maybe he should be escaping. He hung limply, eyes glazed over.

Suddenly he was falling again, sliding off the creatures creatures claws with a sickening slosh, and he was free to panic again. Free to realize with horror that the spiders were turning him into something else with their cocooning.

Just when he realized he could fight it, his back hit the floor, and he was back in his room. He sat up with a start, scrambling to his feet and clamoring for his clock. 15 minutes. It felt like years, but it was just 15 minutes. He fell back and openly wept. He hated these nights. So much. He couldn’t stop them, couldn’t control them, couldn’t mitigate them. He could only suffer, and he hated it.

Suddenly the white eyes of the creatures flashed in his mind again, and he snapped his room into darkness. The fear of the black mist going unseen in the darkness of his room crossed his mind, but he knew it wouldn’t be there without the beast’s white eyes and fangs.

He crawled his way to the corner in the dark, blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and allowed himself to cry without judgment. Allowed himself to tremble in fear at his fate, at the crying in the walls, the claws scratching against wood, at the figures he knew lingered in the dark but couldn’t bring himself to face. He simply stared into the dark, every sense on high alert for those eyes.

He had such a long night ahead of him. And all he could do was wait.


End file.
